This invention relates to mail extraction equipment and more particularly to mail extraction equipment which is capable of opening envelopes and spreading apart the opened envelopes at an extraction station to facilitate the removal of the contents of the envelope by an operator.
There exist, in the incoming mail processing art, a variety of types of equipment for processing incoming mail. This equipment ranges from very small electrically powered letter openers or slitters to very large systems for opening envelopes, extracting the contents of the envelopes and processing the extracted contents. In the mid-range of such incoming mail processing equipment, there are available a number of different types of mail extraction machines which are capable of opening one, two or three edges of an envelope and of either spreading the opened envelope apart for extraction of the contents of the envelope by an operator or transporting the envelope for further processing. One such apparatus is sold under the trademark SESAM 3 by Stielow GmbH of Norderstedt, West Germany, and is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,793, issued June 21, 1983, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Mail extraction machines of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,793 are typically equipped with one or more rows of sorting tray shelves or with auxiliary conveyors which may be attached to accommodate additional operators for segregation and filing of the incoming mail. Such equipment is capable of processing a relatively high volume of envelopes per hour, but the dimensions of such incoming mail processors are at least the size of a very large desk and, if equipped with auxiliary equipment, may extend to a length of several meters. Further, certain of the mail extraction machines currently on the market are only capable of handling letters having a narrow range of size and thickness. For example, some such machines can only handle envelopes which are a maximum of 2 mm thick. In addition, there is currently no machine on the market having a cost which is in between the very inexpensive electric letter openers and the moderately priced mail extraction machines of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,793.
As a result of a relatively small mail volume (e.g., 200 to 500 letters per day) and the expense of available mail extraction machines, many processors of incoming mail are forced to limit themselves to the inexpensive electrically powered letter openers, because the additional cost of a mail extraction machine cannot be justified in view of a low mail volume. Further, many companies have incoming mail processing which, by necessity or design, is spread out among a number of different departments. Therefore, while the overall volume of mail for the company may be quite large, the individual batches of mail which are processed in the separate departments may be relatively small, so that the cost of obtaining a mail extraction machine for each department which is opening mail, is not justified.
While available mail extraction machines perform their functions well, there is a need in the field of incoming mail processing for a more moderately priced mail extraction apparatus which is versatile with respect to the type of mail it will open, and which will fulfill the needs of a user having either a lower incoming mail volume or an incoming mail volume which is split between a number of different departments or operators. Further, due to office space limitations prevalent in many companies, there is a need for a relatively small sized mail extraction apparatus which can be readily integrated into an existing office environment and with existing incoming mail processing equipment, while requiring a minimum amount of space.